Nanoparticle-Imprinted Silica Gel for the Size-Selective Capture of Silver Ultrafine Nanoparticles from Water.

ABSTRACT: A synthetic approach has been developed to prepare silica gel monoliths that embed well separated silver or gold spherical nanoparticles (NP), with diameters of 8, 18 and 115 nm. Fe³⁺, O₂/cysteine and HNO₃ were all successfully used to oxidize and remove silver NP from silica, while aqua regia was necessary for gold NP. In all cases, NP-imprinted silica gel materials were obtained, with spherical voids of the same dimensions of the dissolved particles. By grinding the monoliths, we prepared NP-imprinted silica powders that were able to efficiently reuptake silver ultrafine NP (Ag-ufNP, d = 8 nm) from aqueous solutions. Moreover, the NP-imprinted silica powders showed a remarkable size selectivity, based on the best match between NP radius and the curvature

SUBMITTER: Pallavicini P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10223345 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature